Tag: Guillermo Del Toro

Crimson Peak fails to cash in on its stellar cast. We have Hiddleston, Chastain, Wasikowska, and Del Toro’s golden goose Hunnam, doing the honours through their brilliant acting. We have got the horror pro Toro in the vanguard running the reels. Still, what goes wrong?

Twenty minutes into the movie and you are suddenly hit by a disgusting rock of indifference. You don’t want to watch it any further, because things aren’t exactly exciting or frantic for that to matter. The introduction of the characters to the tale is sour. The score hobbles from the mysterious violin to occasional piano notes without imparting it a proper depth. It struggles with its ghost without any explanations.

Edith played by Mia sways expressionless and sometimes distant in her period attire. Thomas and Edith chemistry doesn’t ignite sparks either, and you begin to wonder how mediocre love could be. The latter was supposed to be deliberate. However, it all looked too dramatic to be true which, I believe, Toro could have worked upon more.

But then comes the first crime, and suddenly you are handed over a purpose in crimson gore. There is blood and a secret that Hiddleston eyes hide, and you begin doubting the Sharpes at once. Jessica Chastain is brilliant as Lucille Sharpe, but not good enough. She is shadowed mostly for a considerable amount of time before she shows her true colors. Hunnam is lost in a role that could have used some more gravity. But poor editing literally chops him off.

Ghosts in the movie like Edith’s manuscript’s characters are metaphorical and were depicted nicely. It would be foolish for people to turn in to watch this flick assuming it to be of horror genre. It was more like crime.

Some of the bits in the movie were great to watch. The story was holed up gorgeously, waiting quietly to unfold itself into a marvelous thriller, which it did halfway. The blood, the deaths and the stabbings were brutal but brilliantly depicted. Screenplay wasn’t exactly great, but some of the lines used in the movie were really the alerting kind. Watch out for Lucille’s lines on love in the end where she describes love to be twisted.

What turned me off big time was how this movie could have become more. There was supposed to be poetry in the flick’s crimson clay. The house that breathed of a dreadful past and bled tears of red every night. It all died down in a jiffy on a quick revelation, which was just sad. There wasn’t much tension building in the flick that would compel you to bite your fingernails, which was also another crucial factor amiss.

Given the colossal success of the first one, Taken sequels have turned out to be sheer duds. Taken 3 Movie is no different.

“l’ll come for you, I’ll find you and we both know what will happen then.”

When the screenplay of the movie gets as cheesy as the aforementioned, we fathom how limited thoughts have been spent writing the final part of this franchise. Taken 3 goes to that unimaginable doom and comes back alive narrowly escaping from being branded the worst trilogy ever. Things that probably saved the movie can be easily counted on fingers: a twist in the plot, Liam Neeson and…..okay so two fingers actually.

Direction of Taken 3 Movie

The camera work of Olivier Megaton is an impoverished affair. It is so dodgy that you can hardly watch those car action sequences that were supposed to be great. It is as if the director didn’t want you to see the crash because maybe that’s too violent? O.o

Taken 3 Movie has very limited violence, and not even a single tinge of gore to complement its action. The plot you have seen so many times that any kind of reiteration and a big yawn ensues without you helping it.

Mini Spoiler Alert

A promising villain; he actually seemed promising! Well he promised you a badass conclusion right there in the prologue actually, but is literally absent in the entire movie only to return again in his undies. (Awkward fight alert! :P) And why is Forest Whitaker even in it?

If you still wish to see how the action franchise ends, or are a diehard Liam Neeson fan, you can buy the Taken 3 movie from here:

Focusing on the Bright Side

So there is one rad flight scene that can be passed as the most memorable one in the entire flick. That and the fact that Dougray Scott gets to end this franchise. Someone offer him more roles already! Also while we are at the optimistic column for a second, let us not ignore the fact that the flow of the Taken 3 movie was great. Everything was happening for a reason and the unfurling was actually making sense. Also, Olivier Megaton was really concerned about showing things that might have confused even laymen. Nothing subtle about his direction though.

The Final Verdict

Franchises like Taken eagerly wait for a script to be written (why a franchise? Moolah of course) for a possible exploit because of that sole fresh idea in the pack that got applauded in the first place for its originality. Rest is downright hunt for gold.

Now that the Taken franchise is finally over, we can say sequels of Taken are mere dispensable piggybacks that we could have probably lived without. While there are producers and directors wasting resources in order to grab more booty off a triumphant brand, on the other hand, we have great directors like Guillermo Del Toro who make sequels only to genuinely tell the people the rest of the story they had conceived in their heads. (Intended wink to Pacific Rim sequels)

Taken 3 ends up becoming a mediocre clichéd tale of falsified-framing, revenge, a cop who eats bagels off the crime scene, of finding people and you know the rest. I assume you have seen the prequels.